


A Betting Man

by libraralien



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Bathroom Sex, Bets & Wagers, Blow Jobs, Drunk Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 13:06:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11669712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/libraralien/pseuds/libraralien
Summary: Sometimes Sweeney plays to lose.





	A Betting Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [days4daisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/days4daisy/gifts).



_“Hey, Sweeney,” said Shadow, breathless, “why are we fighting?” “For the joy of it,” said Sweeney, sober now, or at least, no longer visibly drunk. “For the sheer unholy fucken delight of it. Can’t you feel the joy in your own veins, rising like the sap in the springtime?” His lip was bleeding. So was Shadow’s knuckle._

***

After the thrill of the fight was over, Sweeney paced around the bar, sulking for several minutes. Shadow kept his eye on him, positive he was going to start something again, while nursing a beer.

Sure enough, before too long he walked back over to where Shadow was sitting, with a look of mischief in his eye.

“So you can do coin tricks,” he said, swinging a chair around and sitting in it backwards, throwing one lanky leg over the chair back, lip still bleeding, “How about card games? I assume so, not much else to fuckin do in prison.”

“I was good at card games before prison. But yeah, I know card games.”

Sweeney produced a deck of cards, still wrapped in plastic to show they were untampered with.

“Gin?” he asked, unwrapping the deck, “Good game for two people.

“What about him?” Shadow gestured over his shoulder at Wednesday, who was now chatting with a young woman at the bar.

“He’s busy, and besides, you don’t want to be playing games with him. He never plays fair.”

Shadow tried not to think about that statement on the character of the man he had just agreed to work for.

“And may I ask, are you a betting man?” Sweeney asked, glancing up from cutting the deck.

“You could say that. I frequented casinos for a while. And I bet in prison to kill the time, low stakes stuff: cigarettes, snacks...push ups.”

“How about we involve a little money in this game? What do you say?”

“Well, as you know, I did just get out of prison, and I haven’t really started my new job. So I don’t exactly have any money to bet.”

“Ohhh, that’s no fun. No point in a card game without a bit of a wager, eh? Here-” he said, as he abruptly dumped a pile of gold coins in front of Shadow, again seemingly out of thin air.

“And what is stopping me from just taking this pile of coins and walking out the door?”

“I suppose you could,” Sweeney admitted, “But I think you are interested in where this night is going. And you did try to make hamburger meat out of my face, so indulging me in some friendly gambling is the least you can do. Besides, the worst that can happen is you lose it, and well, you didn’t have it when you came in tonight. Hardly a loss for you.”

Shadow eyed Sweeney warily, but it did seem that having secured an employee, Wednesday’s attentions were now firmly elsewhere for the rest of the night. He scooped the pile of coins toward himself, shoving most of the pile into his pocket, leaving a few on the table.

“Ok, gin then? Three coins on the first round?”

Sweeney grinned and dropped three coins on his side of the table, as if they had been in his hand the whole time.

To Shadow’s surprise, Sweeney did not appear to cheat. Or rather, if he was trying to cheat, he was not succeeding. Round after round, he lost and lost, releasing a stream of increasingly colorful swears after every lost round. He started buying Shadow drinks, Shadow assumed in hope of making Shadow bet more or get sloppy and distracted. Shadow didn’t care, his pocket was fat with Sweeney’s gold coins.

As he was picking up his winnings from the last round, Sweeney paused abruptly.

“Shite. I’m out of money.”

“Aw, did thin air stop producing? Pity for you,” Shadow said cheerfully, rather pleased with himself, “Guess we'll just have to call it a night.”

“No please,” Sweeney pleaded, “Give me one more chance to win some back.”

“I don’t think so. You just said yourself you don’t have any more money, and judging by the look of you, you don’t have anything else I want.”

“I might. I’ve been in prison too, I know what men wager when they’ve run out of valuables. And so do you”

“You’ve been in prison?” Shadow said, bemused, ignoring what Sweeney was suggesting

“He’s been anywhere men are desperate,” Wednesday said casually from his seat in at the bar. Shadow had forgotten he was even there. He had several young women charmed, listening to him telling fabulous stories of some sort.

Shadow shook his head. “At any rate, I’m not interested in what you are offering.”

“Oh please, you must be dyin’ for it. Just got outta prison after three lonely years to find out your wife’s dead? You musta been dreamin’ of the pussy! And now you’ll never get it. Tsk, pity. But here I am, offerin to improve the situation with this mouth of mine. ”

“I doubt your mouth has ever improved anything. And even if you are right, I could never be unfaithful to Laura.”

“She’s dead, friend. Wouldn’t she want you to feel good, to go on without her. I mean, I didn’t know the bitch, but it’s what most wives would want. The good ones anyway.”

He was right, Laura was unsentimental to a point, and would want him to try to be happy without her, including fucking other people. And there was part of him that wanted to keep winning. It had been so satisfying for a moment, punching Sweeney in the face, watching the blood spray out from his nose and lips, he could only imagine it would be equally satisfying to see his cock in his mouth, to shut him up if nothing else.

“Alright,” he said finally, placing a single one of Sweeney’s coins on the table, “Let’s play.

“One coin? My mouth on the line and you are only giving me the chance to win back one coin? My blowjobs are surely worth more than a single coin!”

“Hey, you should be glad I’m giving you the chance to win back anything.”

“Of course, pardon my manners,” he said sarcastically.

They played another round, not noticeably different than any of the others, as far as Shadow was concerned. Sweeney lost, yet again. For all his cursing, Shadow felt that he seemed rather at ease. He was sure that the string of losses would have set him off and he would have started another fistfight with Shadow. The reality hit Shadow that he had to decide if he was actually going to take Sweeney up on his offer now, but before he had a chance, Sweeney abruptly stood up and grabbed Shadow’s wrist and led him to the bathroom

“Alright, let’s do this, big boy.”

Shadow had not considered the logistics of the blowjob, but unfortunately, the men’s room was probably the best option. He certainly didn’t want to bring Sweeney back to wherever he was staying, wherever it is he was staying; certainly didn’t want to leave the bar and Wednesday to notice.

The bathroom was as disma and dirty as any dive bar bathroom he had ever seen, but Shadow appreciated it. This shouldn’t be special. This should be quick and dirty. This was because he had won.

Shadow wasn’t sure why he was going along with this, but he had always been bad at extricating himself from getting carried away in other people’s grand ideas. But right now, with no prospects beyond the somewhat vague job offer on the part of Wednesday, and unsure what the future held, getting a blowjob in dirty bar bathroom seemed almost mundane. 

He couldn’t help but feel that Sweeney had won somehow, despite not seeming outwardly pleased about the prospect of blowing Shadow.

Sweeney fussed purposefully with the door, Shadow assumed jamming it shut in some way.

"Shouldn't we go in a stall, or something," Shadow asked, realising how unfamiliar the situation was to him. His normal aura of cool confidence was shaken by his lack of knowledge about how this kind of thing was supposed to happen.

"Ha, big motherfucker like yourself and all seven feet of me fitting in this tiny stall? Not on your life, friend. Don't worry, nobody comes in this bathroom who doesn't have to."

Shadow tried to take his advice and relax, and leaned against the bathroom wall, only noticing the full effect of the alcohol on his body as he relaxed, allowing the wall to support him. He closed his eyes and felt his head swim.

Without opening his eyes, he said, “Well, are you going to do this or what.”

“I don’t know, am I? I’m the one at your disposal, remember.”

“You are”

Sweeney strode over, eyed Shadow carefully, and then suddenly dropped to his knees, his face now level with Shadow’s crotch, though he made no movement to touch Shadow.

“Lucky me you’re a great big, bastard, eh? Most of the time, being on my knees sets me looking right at somebody’s fuckin ribs.”

“So you get on your knees for people a lot then?”

Sweeney responded with silence and a stony stillness. Realizing he would have to be the one to move this along, Shadow hastily unzipped his pants and yanked the waistband of his briefs down below his cock. With his other hand he reached for Sweeney’s head, nudging it toward his crotch. His hands were clumsy from the alcohol, and he ended up pressing Sweeney’s face into himself, missing his mouth.

Sweeney took this uncoordinated attempt as his signal to take initiative, and reached up and gripped Shadow’s cock, not yet hard, and took it in his mouth.

It went through Shadow like a shock. Drunk has he was, he hadn’t been with anyone in three years. For a moment he was worried he wouldn’t last long, but then realized he couldn’t imagine Sweeney particularly wanted it to last long.  
He took a moment to take in his surroundings. The bathroom was cramped and dirty and the door looked dangerously easy to open. He wondered what would happen if somebody came in; if this was the kind of place where walking in on a blowjob was par for the course, or if they would get kicked out. For a moment, he worried Wednesday might walk in; not the best impression for his new employer. Still, it was different than any other place he had fucked, and that in itself was exciting.

He looked down and saw Sweeney giving him a mean glare as a bobbed half heartedly on his cock. Something about his angry glance aroused him more. He wondered if Sweeney would take a swing at him if Shadow grabbed his head, if he let out three years of pent up sexual energy on his face. Only one way to find out.

He experimentally put his hand on the back of Sweeney’s head. Sweeney leaned into it, and that was all that Shadow needed. Suddenly he was totally caught up in the sensation, grabbing Sweeney’s head, furiously pumping against his mouth, Sweeney drooling, eyes shut tight in a frown, letting this be sloppy and short and mean, just like their fight earlier.

Shadow thought about their fight, Sweeney grinning, blood dripping from his mouth and nose. 

"Can’t you feel the joy in your own veins, rising like the sap in the springtime?” he had asked, face beaten and bloody. And the thing was, Shadow did. But he had won, supposedly. Sweeney had gotten his face almost caved in under Shadow's fist, and he was the one talking about joy. Shadow felt it then, the joy, the sheer unholy fuckin' delight of it, as Sweeney had said, of overpowering somebody, of winning a fight. Had Sweeney felt that delight in losing, the joy of being made to bleed, did it rise in him now, on his knees before Shadow?

Shadow did not last long after having these thoughts, coming in Sweeney’s mouth without warning, sliding down against the wall immediately after, not even stopping to clean himself up. 

The last thing he remembered as the exhaustion and alcohol finally overtook him was Sweeney half-heartedly cursing him out for coming in his mouth.

***

_Shadow woke up stretched out in the back of a sedan. The morning sun was dazzling, and his head hurt. He sat up awkwardly, rubbing his eyes._

_…_

_Something clinked heavily in his jacket pocket. He put his hand into the pocket and pulled out a coin the size of a halfdollar. It was heavy, and a deep yellow in color._


End file.
